Mark Golden is no stranger to seeing storm aftermath up close and personal.
The veteran Wilderness Environmental Services employee has been a first-responder, so to speak, at no shortage of places that have witnessed Mother Nature’s wrath; most recently, a major wind storm that whipped St. Joseph Island in the summer required his assistance and, in 2013, he logged five months cleaning up after Toronto’s mammoth ice storm.
Golden’s resume now boasts another impressive entry.
He and his crew are literally in the thick of things, currently lending their services to St. Petersburg, Fla. Although not hit as hard as other parts of the state, such as Orlando, where Golden was initially slated to attend, this city on Florida's gulf coast, part of the Tampa Bay area, has not ducked Hurricane Irma.
“Some areas are worse than others,” Golden told The Sault Star Wednesday in a phone interview during a break in his 16-hour shift. “It’s still pretty bad. Wherever they need us to go, that’s where we go.”
Wilderness Environmental Services, whose Sault Ste. Marie area office is in Aweres Township, has sent 21 workers — 10, two-person crews and a general foreman — to assist Irma-ravaged Florida in cleaning up and regaining electricity where it’s lost. Crews left here last Friday and hit St. Petersburg Tuesday.
Prior to arriving, they maneuvered congested highways into Florida from Georgia, where some time was logged during the trip from the Sault.
“Everybody was trying to get home,” Golden said.
The monster Category 4 disturbance that hit the Florida Keys Sunday was downgraded to tropical storm status as it finally made its way out of the state and into Georgia, where it spawned more damage. By Tuesday, Irma had become a post-tropical cyclone and was slated to head northwest through the southeastern U.S. toward the Tennessee Valley, weakening as it went.
At least 23 people in Florida have died under Irma-related circumstances, and six more in South Carolina and Georgia, many of them well after the storm had passed.
Golden said emotions among St. Petersburg residents with whom he’s spoken appear to lean more toward appreciation than despair.
“Everyone just seems to be happy we’re out and about, and getting (power) lines back up in the air,” he added.
Wilderness Environmental Services crews have been dispatched to different parts of St. Petersburg, where they follow linesmen.
“Trees that are on the line, or trees that have fallen on top of the lines, which also hit the ground, we clear them,” Golden said. “Then the linemen go and put the lines back up.”
Current 16-hour shifts could swell by two hours.
“We want to get the power back on as quickly as possible,” Golden said.
Wilderness was the sole Canadian outfit in St. Petersburg until Tuesday night, when a Quebec unit arrived.
There’s currently more than 700 such crews working in the region. Along with Florida teams, Golden has met counterparts from Colorado, Kentucky and Tennessee.
“It’s unreal to watch so many companies come together,” he said.
Golden’s family wasn’t exactly thrilled about this latest assignment.
“Obviously, they were worried,” the Sault resident said. “It’s not exactly a normal situation. It’s not as easy as taking a tree off a line. The line is under a lot of tension, there’s a lot of weight on it. There were a lot of worried faces when I left, no more sadder than my son.”
FaceTime has afforded Noah, 7, and his dad daily communication.
“He does get the cool pictures, too,” Golden said with a laugh. “There’s a lot of families that let their guys go, too. It’s not just me. There’s a lot more that goes into it than just one guy on a 21-man crew.”
Each cleanup assignment involves common tasks and risks — but Golden’s current duties so far south of the 49th parallel offer a bit of a twist from those carried out previously in Canada.
“It’s a little bit different here … palm trees, pecan trees,” Golden said. “We don’t have those in Sault Ste. Marie.”
The overall goal remains the same.
“We’re in the business of serving people,” said Golden, who has logged 14 years in the trade. “We want to help people out. This seemed like the right thing to do, to come down here and lend a hand, all the way from Canada.”
jougler@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @JeffreyOugler